![\"Liberal](\"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/11102016_campaign-2016-clinto-38201_c0-292-3912-2572_s885x516.jpg\")
<\/a>Liberal lions Sen. Bernard Sanders, the Vermont independent who unsuccessfully vied with Hillary Clinton to be the Democratic nominee, and Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts promised to find common ground with President-elect Donald Trump. (Associated Press photographs)<\/p><\/div>\n
Sens. Bernard Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, the twin pillars of the liberal movement in Congress, said they\u2019re ready to work with President-elect Donald Trump to try to rebuild a frustrated working class that largely feels abandoned by the Democratic Party.<\/p>\n
Amid anti-Trump protests across the country and liberal groups vowing to obstruct the businessman\u2019s entire agenda, Democrats on Capitol Hill have taken a more open approach, saying they\u2019re willing to seek common ground with Mr. Trump \u2014 within limits.<\/p>\n
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi on Wednesday gave Mr. Trump a short but concrete list of areas where she thinks Democrats will be able to work with him. Not surprisingly, they are issues that are least likely to get rank-and-file Republican lawmakers excited: more taxpayer spending on infrastructure and requiring businesses to give paid family leave to new mothers.<\/p>\n
But Mr. Trump has been open to those and other policy priorities that could garner support from Mr. Sanders, Ms. Warren and other Democrats who, at least for now, seem eager to avoid four years of gridlock and unending political fights with the Trump White House.<\/p>\n
In a speech to the AFL-CIO on Thursday, Ms. Warren \u2014 an unlikely ally for Mr. Trump and one who was as hard on him throughout the election season as virtually anyone else in Washington \u2014 laid out a set of shared principles that could lead to legislative agreement.<\/p>\n
\u201cLet me be 100 percent clear about this: When President-elect Trump wants to take on these issues, when his goal is to increase the economic security of middle-class families, then count me in,\u201d the Massachusetts senator said. \u201cI will put aside our differences and I will work with him to accomplish that goal. I offer to work as hard as I can and to pull as many people as I can into this effort. If Trump is ready to go on rebuilding economic security for millions of Americans, so am I, and so are a lot of other people \u2014 Democrats and Republicans.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr. Sanders too spoke of common goals with Mr. Trump, vowing to work with him to improve life for white working-class voters and to take on an establishment class in Washington, on Wall Street and within the media.<\/p>\n
The Vermont senator \u2014 who steamrolled Hillary Clinton in the Democratic Party among white working-class Americans, notching huge wins in rural states such as West Virginia and Kentucky \u2014 also said the Democratic Party made a grave, long-term error in its political pitch.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is an embarrassment, I think, to the entire Democratic Party that millions of white working-class people decided to vote for Mr. Trump, which suggests that the Democratic message of standing up for working people no longer holds much sway among workers in this country,\u201d Mr. Sanders said.<\/p>\n